Diabetes is something very important to me, especially because diabetes type 2 runs in my family, so it's almost inevitable that I will have it one day. There are a lot of medications that help with diabetes symptoms so that people can live pretty normal lives, but this past week scientists have made a discovery while doing research with rats.
Apparently there is a hormone in the liver (called betatrophin) of rats which is also produced in humans. The experiments on rats proved that betatrophin produced the cells needed to increase production of pancreatic beta cells, which are the cells that make insulin in the body.
In order to understand how significant this is, it's important to know about the different types of diabetes. In type 1, beta cells aren't produced at all in the pancreas, but in type 2, there are just not enough beta cells produced to be as effective as possible. And it doesn't have to help just these patients, it could potentially help those with gestational diabetes as well.
The only downside is that this is a very young theory that is still going through testing, but there is a lot of potential in this. It could mean that people would have to give themselves 1 shot a week instead of several and possibly even enable people to produce their own beta cells again. There is true potential, but only time will tell what this drug has to offer the 25 million people living with diabetes in the United States.
Article cred: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/04/could-new-liver-hormone-treat-di.html?ref=hp
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